


Sea Shells

by IslaKariese



Category: Finding Dory (2016)
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Family Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 01:51:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7413877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IslaKariese/pseuds/IslaKariese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is a bit more crowded for all involved after their adventure at the Marine Life Institute. Crowded, but colorful and rewarding. There are a lot of stories to tell and background to cover and issues to live with, but no one ever said that there wasn't any adventure, domestic or otherwise, to be had between the "happily" and the "ever after," now did they?</p><p>First up: Charlie displays a bit of paranoia for Dory's sake after moving to the Great Barrier Reef. Marlin understands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sea Shells

**Author's Note:**

> My beginnings need work (also my endings and occasionally middles) and I haven't written anything in years, but Finding Dory broke my heart and I can't stop thinking about everybody, not to mention that I've got to use this AO3 account at some point. Anyway, please enjoy. My writing's getting a little better, but healthy, NICE constructive criticism is always welcome.
> 
> This lovely post (http://adenil-umano.tumblr.com/post/146096465220/lets-talk-about-queer-poly-disabled-fish) is where I'm getting most of the headcanons for now, since I hardly ever come up with any on my own, but I love to hear suggestions!

If you had asked Marlin a year ago if he could have done half the things that managed to happen to him, he would probably tell you off for chewing on rotten coral and to not kid yourself. He was no adventurer even before he met Coral, and he certainly wasn't afterwards, but looking out over the Drop Off that seemed to start everything, he couldn't bring himself to regret any of it. Most of it.

Before he could get himself lost in his memories, Marlin heard a sound behind him and looked to see an older blue tang mumbling to himself and drifting along the floor of the pathway back home, heading in his direction. As Marlin swam towards him in curiosity, he caught the other male's attention and finally recognized him as Dory's father, Charlie.

"Oh, Marlin, hello!" Charlie swam closer to the clown fish with a wide grin. If nothing else, Marlin was sure Dory's bottomless well of optimism came from her father, if not both of her parents. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I didn't see you there. Fine day for a swim, huh?"

"Oh, it is, I'm sure," Marlin said amicably, "but you weren't out here just for a swim, were you?"

Charlie blinked in confusion. "Why, what makes you say that?"

Marlin wordlessly gestured towards Charlie's finful of seashells, which were many assorted colors and shapes. He would have been impressed by just how many the blue tang was carrying all on his own if the circumstances were a bit more lighthearted.

"O-Oh, these? I'm terribly sorry, I'd forgotten I was carrying them at all!" Charlie stammered, hastily dropping the shells as though burnt, but both men knew it was far too late to do any covering up.

Marlin didn't mention the shells and instead opted to turn back towards the open water at the edge of the Drop Off. After a minute, he felt more than saw Charlie swim up beside him, and they gazed silently at the view. It seemed like the Great Barrier Reef was made up of every color a fish could find in the ocean, but the open water was nothing but greens and blues, blending seamlessly - a far cry from the glaring pinks and yellows of the coral and the sudden but fleeting interruption of every other color imaginable as the local sea life darted through them as they went about their day. The Drop Off was quiet and peaceful... and the site of Marlin's worst memories.

"Did Dory ever get the chance to tell you how we'd met?" Marlin asked suddenly, breaking the silence between them. Charlie glanced over for a moment, eyes wide and mildly curious.

"No, she didn't... or rather, she tried, but Jenny and I think she started more towards the middle of the story and embellished things a bit. She mentioned a whale at one point, and later on the way here she mentioned sharks and jellyfish, but it seemed like a bit much to all happen in the same story. It's more likely that she forgot they all happened on separate occasions-"

"Oh, no, that all happened within a few days of each other," Marlin replied as casually as he could, ignoring Charlie's look of bewilderment. "A bit out of order, if she mentioned the whale first, but that's not the point. It's not how I met Dory, though it's related. You see... well." His face screwed up in discomfort and remembered pain, wondering where to start. "First, I... I should tell you that... well, I used to have... a rather crippling fear of the ocean. I'm sure you noticed Nemo's bad fin?" he asked, vaguely registering Charlie's nod in his peripheral vision. "That's a result of a barracuda attack when he was just an egg. One that took his mother and all of his siblings."

He knew that Charlie must have had an expression of horror on his face, but Marlin couldn't bring himself to look, instead staring blankly out into the open water. "I was terrified something else would happen to him. That fin already made it hard for him to swim normally - what if he came across a predator and couldn't swim away? What if he got lost, or stuck somewhere? What if he sunk because he got too tired and couldn't keep himself afloat in open water? What if, what if, what if... it kept me up at night, often. I smothered him, drilled safety procedures into him, always told him he couldn't do anything on his own so that he'd stay close... It was a terrible way to father him, I know that now, but it was all I could think of at the time. I couldn't let anything happen to him.

"But I pushed him away," Marlin continued. "I was so paranoid and scared, that I wasn't fair to him most of the time. If ever. It was here..." The clown fish took a deep breath. "Right here, where I scolded him too harshly, drove him to do something reckless out in the open water in an attempt to defy me, and he got caught by divers and taken away."

"Oh, my goodness, is he okay? Well, no, I mean, I know he's okay _now_ , but was he-?"

"Not exactly," Marlin responded quickly, saving the other from stumbling over his concern. "Miracle of miracles, but he wasn't hurt at all. Just scared and very far from home. I shudder to think what could've happened if it weren't for Dory, though."

Charlie perked up, a heartbreakingly familiar expression of hope and love on his face at the mention of his daughter's name. "Dory?"

"Yes. I was following the boat that took him, but it had a head start and I lost it. And then I tried to see if anyone else saw it and I swam headlong into traffic. I never even saw Dory until we'd crashed into each other. But after that, things seemed very simple. She'd seen the boat and told me to follow her and things were looking up. But then..."

"Her short-term memory loss."

"The short-term memory loss," Marlin confirmed, chuckling in a way that held little to no true humor in it. "I'm an old man, I struggle to keep up with most other fish on a good day, especially not one trying to out-swim you because she thought I was the least subtle stalker in the sea."

Charlie's grimace of sympathy was mildly hilarious, and Marlin could tell that he was trying not to smile. "You can laugh you know," Marlin urged him with a grin of his own. "It wasn't all that funny at the time, but it was a year ago, we're allowed to laugh about it now. Still, she'd certainly tried my patience, and if it weren't for the sharks, I'd certainly have left her behind without a second thought."

"I was wondering when the sharks were gonna come in," Charlie mused, trying not to show indignant rage at the thought of his kelpcake getting left alone again, if only because he knew the circumstances weren't very accommodating and that Marlin's priorities would of course be his son, not some random fish who might've been playing a rather cruel and ill-timed practical joke.

"Yes, well, the sharks aren't the important part," Marlin assured, shaking his head. "The important part is that Dory knows how to read. The important part is that she's not afraid of dark water. The important part is that she can speak whale and that she's willing to do all these crazy things and... well." A throat was cleared nervously, and he continued. "I'll be... painfully honest right now. I'm rather envious of you and Jenny."

The blue tang blinked. "...Excuse me?"

"I know, it sounds rather bad. But you see... the strength it took you to keep waiting all those years... to stay and hope and... and..." _live_ , Marlin couldn't bring himself to say, but he knew by how utterly still Charlie was that it was heard regardless. "We found Nemo in a matter of days. Even with the MLI in mind, it was the worst few days of my life, filled with fear and panic and worry and self-loathing so thick that more than once I thought I'd choke and go belly-up from it all. And after all that, there was a moment where I genuinely thought him dead, and..." He closed his eyes and could see Nemo floating upside-down in that wretched plastic bag, remembered believing that he'd indirectly killed his own son. It took years to convince himself that Coral and the others weren't his fault. He didn't have fangs or spines, wasn't large or strong enough to drive off the barracuda. It was nature, nothing more. Coral's death wasn't his fault.

Nemo's was.

Or, it would have been, if his son wasn't just playing dead as part of a plan that he and Dory, unfortunately, weren't privy to.

"We had a destination," Marlin said abruptly, not looking anywhere near Charlie, hoping to avoid any hint of pity or sympathy. That's not what this conversation was about. "We didn't have much of a plan, but we had somewhere to go, somewhere to look. You didn't have that. All you had was each other and the shells. And hope that she'd find them. Years of living the way I have has made me a pessimist. I couldn't have done that. I couldn't have waited so long, I would've thought him dead within days; months, perhaps. But years? It shames me to admit, but I couldn't have waited years."

Marlin felt movement, and a startled glance to the side revealed that Charlie was much closer than before, offering silent comfort and support. He hadn't yet seen the blue tang looking so serious before, and he realized that the cheery attitude, both his and Jenny's, was more for Dory's benefit. Singing and laughing with their daughter, even when she was so much older than the last time they'd had the opportunity, was something familiar, something they could trust. But the years had certainly left their scars.

He allowed it, for a minute. He'd never really gotten this sort of companionship, this empathy. Dory was a wonder, and oh-so-ready to lend a helping fin, but she couldn't understand, or at least not for long enough for it to have the desired effect. But this? He would take this.

With a sigh, Marlin finally got to the point of his frankly unsolicited monologue. "Your shells are a genius idea. And far be it from me to keep you from laying them down if it will help you believe that Dory will be safe. Shells are a healthier coping mechanism than anything I've come up with, at any rate," he muttered sardonically under his breath, turning away from Charlie and beginning to head back homeward. "I won't keep you from it any longer. Maybe in a day or two, I'll take you both on a more detailed tour of the Reef, so that you can make paths for the rest, too."

"...Hey, Marlin?"

The clown fish stopped swimming and looked back inquiringly.

Charlie was silent for a moment, taking the time to pick up some of the shells he'd dropped earlier, before saying, "Dory called you family, and that's enough to make us family too, in my book. If you... if you ever need to talk again, to me or Jenny, we'd be happy to lend an ear."

Marlin stared a moment. Then he smiled with a nod. "And I'd be happy to do the same."

It wasn't a quick fix, talking about anything. But it was a start.


End file.
